Home & Patio Show ends 4-day run at Prime Osborn

Sunday

Sep 30, 2012 at 8:18 PM

Roger Bull

It had all the stuff of home and patio. There were air conditioners and grills, closet organizers and hot tubs at the Jacksonville Home & Patio Show, which wrapped up four days at the Prime Osborn Convention Center Sunday.

There was cookware, lots of cookware, along with new and improved mops and magic cleaning cloths.

There was also plenty of stuff that wasn't quite home or patio: Jewelry, sunglasses and promises that foot, knee and hip pain would be gone in one minute and that you'll never have dry skin again. You could get your teeth whitened in 20 minutes or a get a massage.

But much of the show was lined with vendors to help you keep your home clean, comfortable and organized.

Gutters, in particular, apparently are a big problem. Kevin Booth, owner of Gutter Helmet, said he knows why.

"Each year," he said, "260,000 people fall off ladders trying to clean gutters."

So Booth was one of the vendors offering gutters that don't fill up with leaves and don't need cleaning at the top of that wobbly ladder.

It'd been a good show, he said. About 110 people had signed up for visit and estimate by early Sunday afternoon.

Creative Design Space had one of at least a half-dozen displays featuring outdoor kitchens, featuring granite countertops and grills costing well into the four figures.

"People are putting the money into their back yards rather than a vacation, or even their home," said owner Jeff MacElroy. The outdoor kitchens he's building now aren't quite as expensive as they were when he started eight years ago, but they're still averaging $7,000-$14,000 and can go as high as $50,000.

"They're starting to move back up," he said.

Richard Polk stopped by that booth, just to look.

"I like to cook," he said, "and I'm just starting to build a back patio. So I'm seeing what's out there."

What was at the show were pressure cookers, knife sharpeners and fold-away beds.

Mahala Anderton and Darby Tansey were there with do-it-yourself concrete. Rent their Cart-a-Way mixer, tow it your house and spread out a patio: $199 for an eight-by-10.

"I think all the do-it-yourself cable TV shows have really helped give people the confidence that they can do it," Tansey said.

roger.bull@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4296

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